The Chinese Puppet

Early this year, on the dusty outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodian troops opened fire on a crowd of garment workers demonstrating for an increase in the national minimum wage. The hail of bullets mowed down the young protesters—armed with only rocks and a few rudimentary Molotov cocktails—killing five and wounding more than 20. The next day, the authorities broke up an anti-government rally at the city’s Orwellian-named Freedom Park and announced a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people, sending the political opposition’s two leaders into hiding. The message from Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia’s longtime strongman, was clear: I’m in charge, and those who resist will face the consequences.

The crackdown did not come as a surprise to those who have followed Hun Sen’s 29-year rule. The former Khmer Rouge commander has stayed in power by doing everything from sanctioning the torture and execution of opposing soldiers to ordering a grenade attack on a political rival (which he denies despite overwhelming evidence). So when tens of thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets after deeply flawed national elections last July, which ratified five more years of Hun Sen’s rule, there could only be one outcome.

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The brutal suppression of the youth-led protest movement is just one aspect of broader repression: In 2013, Transparency International and Reporters Without Borders downgraded Cambodia a collective 29 places in their annual rankings. Cambodians with the courage to speak out run the risk of prison or worse, as evidenced by the recent, as yet unsolved murders of environmental activists.

And yet the United States has provided a steady stream of aid to Cambodia since 1992. More than 20 years and roughly a billion dollars later, there’s very little to show for that aid, which now tops $70 million a year. The politically connected elite in Cambodia have evicted thousands of poor people from their land in the name of dubious development projects, destroying vast swaths of protected forests and hoarding the spoils of recent double-digit economic growth as half the country lives on less than $2 per day. Meanwhile, President Obama and his top officials have cozied up to the man at the top, rewarding Hun Sen with prized visits to Cambodia, culminating in a closed-door meeting between the two leaders in Phnom Penh in 2012.

In 1997, when Hun Sen cracked down amid bloody factional fighting in the capital, the United States temporarily suspended all non-humanitarian assistance to Cambodia. Today, despite renewed calls in Congress for Washington to get tough on Hun Sen again, there is very little chance of that happening. The reason? China.

As the United States looks to reassert itself in Asia, Washington is attempting to woo a Phnom Penh that has become one of Beijing’s staunchest allies. Hun Sen is increasingly willing to go to bat for Beijing in regional forums and disputes over potentially resource-rich islands in the South China Sea. China has rewarded by pledging $548 million in aid to Cambodia in 2013 alone, far outstripping U.S. assistance. With its influence severely diminished, the United States is scrambling just to keep a seat at the table. Promoting human rights has slipped from being perhaps the defining U.S. policy goal in Cambodia, as it was in the 1990s, to one of a host of strategic and economic concerns.

Particularly striking have been Washington’s overtures to the Cambodian military, which helps keep Hun Sen in power. Hun Sen uses the armed forces not only to quell dissent, but also to protect the economic interests of the elite through land grabs on behalf of business tycoons—all further solidifying his hold on power. The United States provides both training and materiel, officially to professionalize Cambodian military units and to combat drug trafficking and terrorism (in a country with virtually no threat of Islamic radicalism). Washington has also educated and trained Hun Sen’s three sons, all members of the armed forces or government, including sending Hun Manet, widely seen as his father’s chosen successor, to West Point on a scholarship.

But it’s hard to see what the United States is getting out of it. Hun Sen has made no secret that his loyalties lie with China, which he has said “respects the political decisions of Cambodia. They build bridges and roads, and there are no complicated conditions.” If anything, American policy seems schizophrenic: Military outreach competes at times in tragically direct fashion, with more high-minded U.S. aid for civil society and democracy building.

The clash couldn’t have been clearer at the recent garment workers’ protest. As recently as a few years ago, Hun Sen’s elite 911 Brigade, the squad firing into the crowd with assault rifles, had received U.S. training.